CHAPTER IV
It was a wondrous world. He walked in halls of polished marble and looked out through colonnades across a bright blue sea. Gentle breezes carried flowers' perfumes to him. Wine warmed his throat. Music rippled in faint, nostalgic waves.
Yet he knew no joy, for loneliness ached dull underneath his breastbone. First listless, then feverish, he wandered in and out among the columns, ever seeking. Servitors brought rare foods, sun-blushing fruits, to tempt his palate; and there were women who pressed themselves upon him, seducing him with eye and voice and touch.
But he brushed by; he would have none of them. He saw the blue sea as a wasteland. The wine turned bitter in his mouth.
Then, suddenly,shewas there, a fairy figure far off amid the towering pillars. With a glad cry, he ran towards her.
But she laughed and flitted away before him. And when he tried to follow, dusk came, casting ebon shadows, and he could not find her, and he threw himself down on the hard bed of the marble, bruised and broken.
"Eileen—!" he moaned. "Eileen...."
As from afar, a voice said, "That's right. Another shot of vorghon."
He turned his head, ever so slowly. He forced his burning, heavy-lidded eyes to open.
A man in the white jacket of the medcorps stood beside him, smiling. "Good," the man said. "I knew we'd do it. Vorghon always brings them around."
"You hit it, all right." It was another medman speaking. "For awhile there, I'd begun to wonder. But that last shot turned the trick."
Again Boone whispered: "Eileen—where is she?"
"Eileen, did you say? The first of the medmen came down closer. Some girl? You were alone, you know, aboard the carrier."
"The ... carrier—?"
"You don't remember that part, even?" The medman's brow furrowed deeper. His eyes flicked to his fellow for the fraction of a second as if in wordless exclamation, then came back to Boone again. "You were aboard a sphere-ship bound for Titan. Then the monsters hit it and all hands took off. When we picked you up, you were in an EC carrier, drifting just out of Hyperion's orbit." He chuckled. "You were out of your head at the time. Someplace along the line you'd gotten pretty sick."
Boone tried to drag himself up but found his arms were pinioned. "I was on Hyperion!" he mumbled. "I didn't leave the ship; it crashed down through the ice-shell. Eileen was with me—"
But the medman had straightened. He was not listening. "Another shot for this lad," he clipped briskly. "Make it equal parts of vorghon and anhalsax."
"Right, sir," the second medman nodded. Boone glimpsed an aerojet descending.
Then he was off again—off on another nightmare chase, following Eileen through sifting spheres of light and darkness.
This time, at last, he caught her. Only when he would have put his arms about her, she suddenly changed into a faceless, somehow leering Helgae.
But the haze was gone when he roused again, and he felt better.
Then the medmen came in, looking not quite so jovial as before. A frozen-faced ship's officer entered with them.
There was the usual routine check. At its conclusion, the medman in charge turned to the officer. "All right. You can talk to him now." He stepped back.
The officer moved in closer. "Your name's Fred Boone, EB rating, attached to the Ganymedan base." He said it as if it were an accusation.
"That's right."
"On September 3, 2156, adjusted Earth dating system, you forced the base director, Martin Krobis, to pass you onto the base grav-ramp, then paralyzed him with a nerve-shock and stowed away aboard sphere-ship XL-230, bound for Titan, in direct violation of his specific orders."
Boone studied the officer thoughtfully, but said nothing.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
The officer's ears grew pink. "Affirm or deny."
"I'd rather not do either till I have advice of counsel."
"Oh. One of those." The officer's lips drew tight. "All right, then, if that's the way you want it. But I warn you, it won't help."
Turning on his heel, he stalked out the door. The medmen followed.
Still Boone lay unmoving. There was a tension in him now, and of a sudden he felt old and weary.
So even here, even now, after all that had happened, Krobis was bound to get his pound of flesh.
Almost idly, he wondered how it would end.
Not that it mattered. Not now with Eileen still back on Hyperion, a captive of the Helgae.
If she'd lived this long.
Bleakly, he wondered what had happened that day—or was it night?—in the weird domed city. Were the Helgae living entities, as it had seemed? Had they really tried to probe his brain by some strange thought-wave system? Or was that all imagination?
For that matter, had he ever actually been beneath the ice-shell? Did it even exist? And was there a warm, lush world inside it—a world where huge, six-sexed flowers bloomed and held their colors in spite of ammonia and methane; where Helgae bubbles formed in a flash to trap invaders?
Above all, how had he come to be aboard a carrier, drifting beyond Hyperion's orbit?
Those were questions to which, some day, he'd have to find the answers.
Such questions—! And so many of them!
Yet in his heart he knew that they were academic, almost. For they only concealed the true core of his tension.
Eileen.
Again he saw her as in those last long moments—sealed in her separate sphere, her pale face fear-straught.
The memory woke new fever in him. Why was he lying here, with her in danger? Now, above all, seconds were precious!
And there was only one road for him to take to help her.
A bitter road. Yet he had no choice.
He shifted; twisted; fumbled for the buzzer button.
A medman came. Boone said, "I want a space-phone."
"Who are you calling?"
"The Ganymedan base director. His name is Martin Krobis."
"I'll see." The man went out again.
When he came back, he brought an audio-visual com-box with him. "The call's allowed. I've placed it for you." Setting down the unit on the stand beside Boone's bed, he left the room.
Taut-nerved, Boone waited.
Then the signal blinked. Krobis' face flashed on the receptor-screen, sharp features set in an expression that was half gloating smirk, half chill, bleak menace. "Well, Boone?" His voice came brittle.
Boone hunched forward. "Let's not waste time on things past, Krobis. We know how we feel about each other. What counts now is that Eileen's in trouble."
Tersely, he told his story.
But Krobis' expression stayed the same. The black eyes showed no slightest flicker of emotion.
"That's all, Boone?"
Boone's palms were sweating. "'That's all'—?" he echoed. "Isn't that enough? What more do you want."
For the first time, Krobis' facial muscles shifted. Hate boiled in his eyes. His lips peeled back in a raging grimace. "I wantyou, Boone!" he slashed out fiercely. "I want you, and I'm going to get you! Before I'm through, you'll be booted out of Cartel service and rubbingdjecin Venus barracks. This nonsense you've told me—"—he laughed, a harsh, contemptuous laugh—"—do you think I don't see through it? Not even a cadet on his first trip would swallow it! You're trying to save your own neck, that's all. But it won't work, not for a minute—"
"But Eileen—"
"To hell with her, too! Even if I believed you, my job's in Mekronal, not Rescue Service!"
He broke off sharply, as if unable to find words harsh enough to vent his fury. His hand blurred as he flicked the switch.
The screen went dead.
Belly quivering, Boone turned off his own unit and slumped back on the bed.
But before he could even sort out his own feelings, the com-box signal blinked again.
For the fraction of a second Boone hesitated, nonplussed and frowning, then threw the switch.
This time the face on the screen was one he hadn't seen before: a stern-faced man with greying hair, all dignity.
The other said, "I'm Douglas Schilling, specialist in space law at Thelema. A mutual friend heard about your current difficulties. He suggested that you might like to have me serve as counsel."
Boone stared. "A mutual friend—"
"Yes," Schilling nodded. "He prefers that I not use his name over the space-phone, but he said you'd remember him as the man to whom you were talking in Gandor City just before you left for Titan."
Gandor City—! Boone rocked. That could only be Terral, the representative of Associated Independents!
"Do you remember?" Schilling prodded.
Boone made his face a mask. "Yes. I remember."
"Then if you'd care to have me represent you—"
"I would." Boone leaned back and smiled thinly. "That is, if you're still willing after you've heard my story. Krobis has already turned it down."
"Krobis—!" The other's keen eyes flickered. "You mean you've talked to him, given him the details as to what happened?"
"Yes."
"I can't say that I'm glad to hear it. However...." The lawyer shrugged. "Let's make it that I'll see you when your ship gravs down at the Cartel's Thelema headquarters base on Mars tomorrow."
"Good enough."
"Till tomorrow, then...." Already, the lawyer's face was fading.
Tomorrow. To Boone, it seemed that the hours dragged on beyond measure. Yet then, when at last the new day had come, he found himself almost regretful—dreading the things he knew that it must bring; fighting down an ever-growing tension.
Because he knew in his heart that he wasn't going to take it. Not with Eileen's life perhaps at stake; not with Hyperion's ice-shell beckoning.
Somewhere, somehow, he'd find a way....
There was a final routine with the medmen. They pronounced him sound, turned him over to the guards.
Then the ship slowed, hovered. Gravving down through the great Thelema airlocks, it settled to the ramp.
Flanked by two guards, Boone strode from the lift-shaft.
Schilling stood outside. Coolly, he extended documents to Boone's captors. "A temporary order for release of your prisoner to my custody for pre-hearing consultation, gentlemen."
The guard in charge checked through the papers, then stepped back. "He's all yours, Mister."
Schilling led the way to a surface carrier without speaking.
Boone eyed him curiously. "How does it look?"
The lawyer leaned back, and the carrier slid smoothly into motion. "Frankly, I don't like it. Krobis wants blood. He's come in all the way from Ganymede himself, instead of sending a deposition or testifying on the com-box; and he's persuaded the Cartel to try you before a general board so that you can be discharged from the service, with release to the Federation for criminal action if you're convicted."
"So it's double trouble." Boone smiled wryly. "I might have expected that from Krobis."
"You're not convicted yet," retorted Schilling. "Besides, I got that release order so you'd have a chance to talk with someone who's in a spot to help you."
"Terral?"
The lawyer nodded and brought the carrier to a halt beside a building. "You'll find him in my office, there. I'll drop back later."
It was Boone's turn to nod. He got out and went into the building.
And there was Terral—lean, grey, shrewd-eyed Terral, the man empowered to speak for Associated Independents.
He gripped Boone's hand. "Glad to see you, man—even though the circumstances could be better."
"Oh, I don't know." Boone held face and voice alike noncommittal. "Anyhow, thanks for getting Schilling."
"You're wondering why, of course." Terral's lips drew thin. "Believe me, it wasn't altruism, Boone; not one bit of it."
Boone frowned. "Maybe I just don't understand."
"You will," the other clipped. And then: "Boone, how much do you know about Titan fever?"
"Titan fever—?" Boone shook his head. "Not too much."
"Are you aware that it's reached the epidemic stage on half-a-dozen satellites and planets?"
"What—!"
"The Federation's keeping the statistics under cover; otherwise there'd be a panic." Terral paced the floor like a caged lion. "The catch is, Boone, we're all like you: No one knows too much about the whys and wherefores of it, except that the original cases came among IC men who worked in the Helgae cities on Titan back when mekronal was first developed."
Boone ran his thumb along his chin. "I'd heard that part. But I thought we had it licked with chandak extract."
"Chandak extract!" The independents' agent spun around, grey eyes blazing. "That's just the trouble! Chandak's a byproduct of mekronal—and all mekronal comes from Titan! So with IC assigned monopoly rights there, the rest of us are stuck."
"But the Federation—"
"The Federation's run by blithering idiots and IC stooges! Sure, with this epidemic they've set up a quota system. But how much does that mean, when Cartel inspectors make out the production reports?"
"So—?"
"So IC's using chandak the same way they've used mekronal—as a weapon against the Independents!" Terral hammered his palm with a bony fist. "Just look at the pattern! With mekronal, their crews can work in all atmospheres, set up bases at a hundredth the cost of anyone else, and claim satellite monopoly rights from the Federation on grounds of prior colonization."
Boone nodded slowly. "Yes. I know how that works."
"All right. That's straight commercial rivalry, so even though it cuts our throats we've got no come-back. But now comes Titan fever—a disease that kills men like flies when you treat it with any of the mill run of specifics. If you don't treat them—" Terral broke off; looked square at Boone. "Boone, do you know the story on that?"
"No, I'm afraid not."
"Then read this—a report from the top labs of your own damned organization! Don't ask me how I got it."
The Independents' rep was fumbling in a briefcase as he spoke. He drew out a thick blue-covered folder and handed it to Boone.
Boone stared down at it. "Titan Fever: An investigation of Untreated Cases," the title read. The binder was stamped "MOST SECRET" in big block letters, and it bore the official seal of Interplanetary Cartels' central research unit.
But the thing that held his eye was the signature on the submission.
The signature of Martin Krobis.
Frowning, he riffled through the document to the final page:
"... In summary, then, the following tentative conclusions may be reported:
"1. Although occasional deaths due to complications sometimes result from Titan fever, most untreated cases may be expected to recover.
"2. However, there is definite evidence that such cases undergo an extreme mutation of the gametes.
"3. While no adverse physiological effects of this mutation are apparent in infants born to parents one or both of whom have been infected, significant mental changes and/or deterioration stand out clearly.
"4. No such mutative effect is evident in cases treated with chandak extract or their offspring.
"On the basis of available data, therefore, it is considered urgent that all cases of Titan fever developing among Interplanetary Cartels personnel or their families be given prompt treatment with chandak extract.
"All base administrative chiefs are explicitly made responsible for seeing that such treatment is carried out as directed."
Stiff-fingered, Boone closed the folder. Again, his eyes met Terral's.
The lean man's face had grown bleak as Mars' windswept deserts. "Do you know what it's going to mean when that report gets out?"
"I can imagine."
"Can you? I wonder." The other raised a clenched fist; shook it. "Boone, it means a Cartel-dominated solar system, the end of human freedom! IC's got a monopoly on chandak and they intend to hold it, Federation or no Federation. The rest of us won't have any choice but to come to them on their terms, or else gamble that our children will grow up gibbering idiots."
In spite of himself, Boone shuddered.
Terral kept on talking: "The production records tell the story. They say that chandak's in short supply—so short that it comes in dribbles. But that report you read doesn't mention any shortage, does it? All it gives is an order—a flat directive to see that all IC's people are protected."
Wearily, Boone nodded. "All right. You've sold me. Now tell me just how I fit in. What am I supposed to do?"
"Good!" The other slapped Boone's shoulder. "As to what you do, it's the same proposition that we talked about at Gandor City. The thing we're buying is your training. There's an Independent ship ramped in the main port, ready to grav-off. It's equipped for mekronal production. You take it out and find some Helgae."
Boone's heart leaped. "You mean—I break and run? I don't stand trial?"
"That's why we had Schilling get that release order."
The room seemed suddenly distorted. Boone paced the floor to hide his shaking.
He'd left Eileen on far Hyperion, a prisoner of the Helgae.
No, in spite of all Krobis' machinations, fate had thrown him a wild gambler's chance to reach her.
Terral's voice drummed at him: "That order cost us, Boone. Who cares, though, if it breaks the Cartel? Sure, you'll be a fugitive for awhile. But you'll be safe so long as nobody thinks to tie you in with us, and we can smooth the whole business over once we get our own source of mekronal and chandak...."
Pushing his jumbled thoughts aside, Boone pivoted. "What are we waiting for? Let's get started."
"Already?" Terral chuckled dryly. "Slow down! This is going to take a little doing." He bent over the desk, scribbled swiftly on a note-pad, and then straightened. "Take this to the manager at Triangle Freight. Hot as you are, we're going to have to crate you up and send you out onto the ramp as cargo."
"Right." Boone slipped the scrawl into his pocket. "I'll be on my way, then."
"Good luck!"
Boone answered with a wordless salute and, turning, strode from the office and the building.
He still felt a little dazed. How could it all have worked out so perfectly and so simply?
Only then, suddenly, a man appeared out of a doorway, hurrying in Boone's direction with head down—almost running.
Too late, Boone tried to sidestep. The man crashed into him and they both reeled, clinging to each other for support.
The next instant, hands gripped Boone from behind. A hard, unseen something rammed against his backbone. "Don't move, Boone!" clipped a tight, familiar voice.
Boone stiffened. "Krobis—!"
"Correct." The thing against Boone's back withdrew. Krobis stepped round into view, nerve-gun in hand, leaving his aides to hold the prisoner. His black eyes glittered. "For the record, you're under Cartel arrest again, in accordance with IC regulations."
Boone held his voice flat. "I can't stop you, Krobis. But when trial-time comes, the Federation may not think much of this."
"You think not?" The Ganymedan base director smirked, and took a stand with too-short legs wide-spraddled. "Personally, I'm more inclined to believe they'll cite me for a commendation—once they've heard my recording of your little talk with Terral!"
For the fraction of a second, Boone stopped breathing. His lips were all at once so stiff he couldn't speak.
"That hit you, eh?" sneered Krobis. "You should have been more careful. All I was interested in to start was finding out who pressured through that release order for you. I didn't guess you had ties to the Independents, or that you planned to run out. But I'm glad you tried it. The recording makes your conviction certain, and puts us where we can jump the gun on Terral.
"Meanwhile, you stay where you belong—in IC's own Thelema guardhouse!"
CHAPTER V
Boone waited till the guard had left the cell-block to let in the group scheduled to conduct the preliminary inquiry. Then, with one last look out across the darkening ramp to where the Independent sphere-ship lay interned, he climbed onto the bunk, looped the end of the torn cloth noose up through the ventilator grating, twisted his collar still more awry, and stepped off into space.
The noose cut his neck, but not too badly. Most of his weight hung from the extra loop he'd run under his arms and round his chest. Yet the turned-up collar made it look like he was truly hanging by his neck alone.
There was a drone of voices from the hallway. Words drifted to him as the speakers paused outside the locked door.
"It's all set up," came the clipped tones of Martin Krobis. "We'll push through the special session of the board tonight, with a quick decision in favor of disciplinary discharge from Cartel service. The Federation court can hear the criminal case next cycle. By the end of the week he'll be on his way to Venus barracks."
Someone laughed raucously. A third voice crowed, "Leave it to Krobis!"
Then the bolt was snicking back, the block door opening. Quickly, Boone twisted his head to an appropriate angle. Closing his eyes, he let himself swing limp and motionless as he could.
The fraction of a second later one of the visitors choked, "Krobis! Look—"
"Damn him—!" This in tight fury from Krobis. "He can't cheat me this way! I won't let him!" Shoes slithered on the flooring. "Quick! Help me!"
Hands lifted Boone. A knife hacked at the cloth noose.
The fabric ripped through at last. Still limp of limb, head lolling, Boone let himself be lowered to the bunk.
Then Krobis' voice rang close beside him: "This noose—! There's something funny—"
Stubby fingers tugged apart the double loops.
Boone slumped sidewise, away from Krobis, so that the other was strained far forward and off balance.
Then, in one swift, convulsive movement, he drove his elbow deep into his enemy's unprotected midriff.
The wind went out of the base director's lungs in a gust. He bent double ... hung tottering, face shock-contorted.
Twisting, Boone whipped his hand up ... chopped down with all his might on the back of Krobis' neck.
Krobis slammed forward on his face on the floor.
As he landed, the spell of startlement that had held the others broke. With an incoherent roar, the man at the left lunged forward.
Boone jerked back. Writhing, flat on the bunk, he jackknifed his legs up and lashed out with both feet, straight at his attacker's face.
The man tried to dodge. Barely, in time, his head flicked aside.
But it was too late for him to twist his shoulders.
There was the brittleCrack!of a collar-bone snapping. The man catapulted back, clear across the cell-block.
But now the third man was upon Boone, swinging a nerve-gun. The guard crowded close behind him.
Before Boone could move, the barrel gashed open his forehead. A fist hammered at his temple. The guard clawed at him ... crushed his flailing legs in a mighty bear-hug.
Spasmodically, Boone clutched the nerve-gun; jammed it upward.
A grunt of pain echoed as trigger-guard wrenched forefinger. The man who held the weapon reared back sharply and let go of it.
Boone backhanded the butt, striking for the man's Adam's-apple.
The blow hit home. Choking, Boone's assailant tried to break free, tripped, and pitched backwards to the floor.
Boone spun the gun, reversed it, blazed a charge at the guard, dangerously close to his own legs.
The burly jailer gave a single paroxysmic jerk, then crumpled.
Blood from the barrel-gash spilling into his eyes, Boone lurched up and lunged for the open doorway.
Someone clutched at his ankle. Kicking free, not even turning, he charged on into the corridor and broke for the building exit—half-running, half-staggering.
Then the last door was swinging shut behind him. He plunged into the shadows along a warehouse.
Behind him, chaos and rising voices. A com-box blared, "All guards alert! Escape! This prisoner's dangerous! Don't let him get off the ramp! All guards alert!..."
Forspark lights flared at the gates. Somewhere a surface carrier rumbled into clattering motion.
Boone sagged back against the warehouse and swabbed the blood from his eyes. Then, still breathing hard, running almost doubled, he raced not towards the gates, but away from them, towards the black block that was the airlock power station.
Shadows again, and another pause for breath. Sirens blasting. The rumble of more carriers.
In spite of his tension, Boone smiled thinly. Swinging round, he moved warily on towards the station entrance.
The two men on duty stood in the doorway, peering out across the ramp.
Back flat to the wall, Boone silently edged towards them ... closer ... closer....
One said, "What's that—?" and started to turn.
Boone leaped forward, triggering a beam from the nerve-gun.
The two duty men went down as one. Dragging them inside, Boone kicked the door shut, then turned to the lock control equipment. In seconds, he had levered out the gear that prevented the outer locks from opening till the inner were closed and sealed.
Crossing to the emergency control bank, then, he threw the first switch.
Heavy-duty motors spun to droning life. A red light flashed on the board.
Ten seconds later the red light clicked off. A green light blazed in its stead, and the motors cut off.
The inner locks were open!
Dry-lipped, Boone threw the second switch.
Motors. Red light. Green light. Silence.
Or almost silence. For now a whistling sound came dimly, apparent even within the building.
The sound of the ramp-bubble's precious atmosphere escaping!
Swinging up a heavy beryllium wrench, Boone smashed the switches.
That made his gamble good for fifteen minutes' leeway ... a quarter of an hour at least that the locks would stay jammed open.
Boone threw down the wrench. Then, pivoting, he strode to the door and jerked it open.
On all sides, in the distance, men were running, shouting. There was a low roar of atmosphere compressors, trying to compensate for the changing pressure. Now sirens blasted.
While he watched, a surface carrier skidded around a warehouse and hurtled towards the airlock power station.
Ice-nerved, Boone waited, weapon ready.
The carrier screamed to a stop beside the door. Men leaped down.
Boone stepped from the shadows, swung his nerve-gun. "Back, damn you!"
The men froze, staring.
Vaulting aboard the vehicle, Boone jammed the gun against the back of the driver's neck. "We're going onto the ramp—out to that Independent ship!"
Wordless, the man pressed buttons, swung the steering lever. The carrier jerked forward.
More dragging seconds. The great sphere on the ramp looming ever-larger.
Boone clipped, "Pull in beside the lift-shaft!"
The driver obeyed.
Stunning him with a beam-edge, Boone jumped down, gun concealed once more, as a uniformed Federation trooper stepped from the lift. He made his voice harsh, peremptory: "Who's in charge here?"
It brought the trooper up short. "Sergeant Martov, sir."
"The crew's aboard?"
"Yes, sir. Security ordered them interned on the ship so word wouldn't get out that we'd taken over."
"Then take me to the sergeant. Fast!"
"Yes, sir." The man spun about.
Boone waited till they were both inside the lift, then hit the other behind the ear with the nerve-gun's barrel.
The trooper went down, unconscious.
Rolling him out of the shaft, onto the ramp, Boone shoved the lift control lever to the fifth stop, the crew quarters.
The lift ground upwards.
There was another trooper on duty on the fifth level exit. Boone paralyzed him with the nerve-gun, not even speaking, and ran on down the corridor to the wardroom.
Two Independent ensigns sat playing N'rlan with a navigator. One glanced up as Boone burst in; half-rose, mouth gaping. "My God! The mek-man!"
Boone's heart leaped. "Then—you know about me?"
"Of course!" This from the other ensign. "Terral had the whole ship readied to take off on two minutes' notice. Only then they grabbed you, and the damn' Cartel nailed us down here with a secret internment order from the Federation."
"But you still could make a run? Everything's aboard and ready?"
"Sure, if the locks would only open. There's just a sergeant and three troopers on duty."
Triumph surged through Boone—a wild, raw-nerved elation that left him sagging back against the door-frame, dizzy.
In a voice that didn't even remotely resemble his own, he said, "The locks are open."
The others took over, after that. As from afar, Boone heard the terse commands, the bellowed orders.
Then lights were flashing, hatches slamming. There was the grav-off's momentary lurch and wallow; the swift rush up, the hiss of passage through the airlocks while the sphere rocked like a cork in the vortex of the bubble's escaping atmosphere.
By the time the medmen had sealed the gash in his forehead, the ship was hurtling out across the void on its appointed course, away from Mars, towards far Hyperion.
Hyperion, and Eileen Rey.
Though there was little enough time for Boone to think about her.
And perhaps that was best, also. For the memory of her was with him every moment, like a shadow, and when he paused even for a second, dark fantasies rose and his belly knotted.
So he was glad when the Independents' wizened, thong-tough captain called him in for consultation in the chart-room.
The hurtling heavens flashed on the wall-screen, sharp-focussed by the microreel projector. The captain raised a long light-pointer. "This is our track. To save time, we'll cut short through The Belt and Jupiter's orbit. It's dangerous, but it may fool them."
A chill touched Boone. "You think they'll follow?"
"After what you did—those crippled airlocks?" The captain's laugh was curt and mirthless. "They'll have the whole Federation fleet out hunting for us. The only chance we've got is to find cover."
"And even if we do, we'll still be outlawed?"
"That's right." The captain shrugged. "So far as I'm concerned, I might as well tear up my ticket."
"But if we get mekronal and chandak—"
"That's why I chanced it."
Boone's backbone prickled. He stared at the screen in aching silence.
Overhead, the com-box crackled: "Detector room reporting. We are getting blips off Ceres."
"The asteroid station," the captain muttered. He turned to Boone. "You may as well know: I doubt we'll make it. Because the Cartel ships will hunt us, right along with the Federation fleet. The Europa units, Ganymede, Callisto—they'll all be out. With that many ships, they can set up a screen and follow us on their detectors. Even though we sneak through, they'll still track us and close in as soon as we grav down."
Boone remained tensely silent.
Now the microreel image showed Saturn rising.
Saturn, mother planet of bleak Titan.
Somewhere in the shadow of those vast, shimmering rings Hyperion, too, moved in its orbit.
Hyperion: Another potential source of the precious mekronal and chandak. Another world of strange domed Helgae cities.
Only Hyperion was turning out to be a trap, not refuge. With Cartel and Federation ships alike spread out in a filter-screen across the void, there'd be no chance for this lone Independent ship to land or hide there.
Unless—
Boone all at once was rigid. "Captain," he asked, "could you run to Uranus?"
"Uranus—!" The wizened officer swung, stared at him. "Are you crazy, man? Why would anyone in his right mind want to go there?"
"That's not the question. Could you make it?"
The other's eyes narrowed. "Yes. I suppose so."
"And could you think up a reason for it—some excuse that the Fedfleet might find convincing?"
"Maybe."
Boone drew in a breath. "Then start getting your story together." He strode to the screen, traced a course with his finger. "If you arc it right, we'll pass through Hyperion's field of attraction. When that happens, you can shoot a handful of us down in carriers without even stopping. You'll take the ship on towards Uranus. The Federation, the Cartel, won't even know we've left you."
The captain rocked. "Boone, youarecrazy!"
"No!" As if by magic, the chill had left Boone. He burned with sudden, feverish excitement. "The only trick will be to breach the ice-shell. For that, you can rig an unmanned carrier or two with warheads. They'll blast a hole. The rest of the party can go down through it."
"But why?" the captain spluttered. "Why Hyperion, of all places? I've come this far because my orders from Terral were to do exactly what you wanted. But this—this gibberish about an ice-shell—"
"—Isn't gibberish!" Boone finished for him fiercely. "You thought this was to be a prospecting expedition, Captain. But that's not so; not really. Because I've been down on Hyperion before—and underneath the surface ice is a warm world with at least one big Helgae city! All we have to do is set up a base, start processing mekronal, and claim the whole satellite for Associated Independents!"
The captain's eyes distended. "Boone, do you mean it?"
"Of course I mean it! I was aboard a sphere that crashed after monsters hit it. That's why we've got to work fast. Martin Krobis knows about it. Unless we hurry, the Cartel may beat us to it with a unit."
But the captain was no longer listening. Face flushed, brow furrowed, he was studying the microreel-projected wall-chart. "I can pass the word to headquarters to send out a sphere-load of equipment. And I've got enough mekronal aboard to give maybe half-a-dozen men protection without a bubble; Terral bribed some Cartel hand to steal a little for him...."
He swung to the com-box, then; snapped orders.
The quiet of the chart-room dissolved into seething bedlam.
While Boone stood by, warheads were fitted to two carriers. With five mekronal-treated men, he crowded aboard a third.
Then, on the visiscreen, bleak Hyperion was looming. Boone waited, taut and strain-straught, hand on the carrier-release lever.
Now, slowly, the mountain peaks so far away began to form a pattern ... a distortion and projection of the same pattern Boone had seen before, looking up at the crags that pierced the ice-shell.
For a moment he almost thought that in a prick of black he was seeing the rift made by the fallen Cartel sphere-ship.
Not that it mattered; enough that he had a mark to shoot at.
The captain's voice rasped from the com-box: "Boone! You'd better hurry. Our detectors show Federation ships approaching!"
The last lingering fragments of Boone's hesitation vanished. He pressed the button set to trigger the first carrier.
Like a scarlet lance, the sleek craft shot from its cradle—speeding out from the sphere; hurtling down towards the ice-shell, faster and faster.
Boone pressed the second button.
Another explosive-laden carrier speared through the void upon its mission.
Boone turned in his seat. "Hatches—?"
"Secured and sealed," a brawny, blond-haired giant behind him grunted.
For the fraction of a second Boone stared at the rocky face, the grim-set jaw.
The others, too: four stone-featured crewmen, each waiting in silence despite the tension.
A tightness came to Boone's throat.
Only then, once again, the sphere-ship captain's voice was rasping: "Boone, those blips are coming closer!"
Tight-lipped, Boone pressed the third button ... the button that triggered this final carrier.
He jarred back, then, as the pressure of the craft's swift acceleration hit him.
But it only lasted for a moment. Free of the sphere-ship, the carrier sped out into space along the path slashed by the two before it. Behind it, the hurtling mother-globe was already fading, as it raced on across Saturn's orbit towards Uranus.
Down, down the carriers lanced, straight for Hyperion's ice-masked surface ... closer and closer, faster and faster.
Then, while Boone held his breath, the first struck.
A flash of fire; a vast exploding cataclysm. Ice spraying out like splattering water....
Before the cloud of icy splinters could even settle, the second carrier crashed home. New jets of spray leaped skyward. Great cracks appeared, from here a tracery of fine, shimmering lines against the satellite's frigid surface.
Boone slowed the third carrier till it hung almost motionless. Taut-nerved, he waited.
Slowly, the drifting blast-cloud cleared. A pit yawned in the ice.
With wary patience, Boone dropped the carrier closer to the surface ... hovered momentarily above the pit-edge.
Color flashed in the depths—the color of flower-fields, of verdure.
Of a sudden the jagged ice-claws didn't matter. Boone zoomed the carrier in a great loop, then dived it back again straight for the pit, the color.
Death's own tension rode with them. Once Boone thought he could hear the echo of a choked-off prayer.
Then the pit's ice-walls were closing around them. The target below seemed so very tiny....
The carrier struck ice, an out-thrust fragment. A shudder ran through its strain-racked structure. Veering, it crashed into the razor shards along the lower lip of the hole.
The impact flung Boone savagely against his belt. His head snapped back so hard that for a moment he thought his neck was broken. Behind him, through the scream of torn and tortured metal, a man shouted shrilly.
Then the carrier was falling. Barely in time, Boone caught the globe-control and spun it.
End for end, the carrier flipped over in the air. Swinging like a pendulum by its nose, it settled to earth with a jarring shock that would have torn the ramping-fins from a craft less sturdy.
Boone sagged in his seat. Then, rallying, he peered upward.
Ice still was falling. Apparently the force of the carrier's down-thrust—coupled with the earlier blasts—had shaled off great chunks of the ice-shell's under-surface.
As for the ship and the others—Boone loosed his belt; scrambled round to see.
The blond giant already was bending over another crewman.
Boone stiffened. "Is it bad?"
The other straightened, shook his head. "I don't think so. He's just out cold; I think he hit his head on something."
"Good." Boone breathed again. "I think I'll chance an all-clear to the sphere-ship."
Turning to the visiscreen, he twisted dials, pressed buttons. Dimly at first, the mother-craft appeared, far out in space.
Only then, while he watched, another sphere swept across the shining panel, followed by yet another and another.
Cartel ships.
There could be no escape from them. Not when they rallied in such numbers.
Even in that moment, the Independent ship was slowly swinging.
A numb sickness came to Boone. He'd counted on days alone here ... days to lay waste the Helgae city till at last he found Eileen.
Now that margin was reduced to cycles. For once Krobis found that he—Boone—and three carriers were missing from the sphere-ship just after it left Hyperion's orbit, it would be mere hours before Cartel ships were landing.
After that, there'd be Venus Barracks, as well as the emptiness of failure.
If he could only find Eileen before it happened....
He flicked off the visiscreen's main switch.
Like the hideous magnification of an echo, a scream rang through the carrier.
Boone whirled.
As he did so, the blond giant's head appeared, framed in the power-converter hatchway. His eyes were white-rimmed, staring, his left arm limp and bloody.
"Monsters!" he shrieked. "Monsters—!"
Those were the last words that he ever spoke. For as he shouted, six great clawed hands stretched through the hatch behind him and convulsed around his body.
The two top ones tore his head off....
CHAPTER VI
Boone died a thousand times in that one moment. Then, shouting a warning to the four remaining crewmen, he caught up an axe from the rack of emergency equipment and crept towards converter-room and monster.
The thing had withdrawn now, dragging the dead man's body with it—for what awful purpose Boone could not even guess.
Yet the question that lay implicit in the thought made him pause just short of the door for the fraction of a second. It turned out to be a pause that saved his life.
For in that same instant a claw-hand snaked back through the hatchway. Filth-encrusted nails scraped along his arm, endeavoring to seize him.
Boone jerked back with a hoarse, involuntary oath. Wildly, he swung the axe.
The keen blade bit into the monster's extended arm. A muddy sludge of blood gushed forth. The claw-hand jerked back.
Yet the thing made no sound—not a single groan or snarl or murmur.
Boone hesitated, even more wary than before. He kicked a fallen spanner towards the doorway.
Like lightning, the monster lunged from its hideout—and now Boone saw why it had made no outcry.
The thing had no head! It consisted of arms only—six hairy, humanoid arms radiating out from a central core that looked like an enormous mushroom button.
Careening, the creature changed course. The arms clawed out to clutch Boone.
Leaping wide, he slashed with the axe—a savage blow with all his strength behind it, straight for the central core, the button.
There was a sound like a watermelon bursting. The button broke and flew apart, not so much sliced as shattered. A sickening stench erupted through the cabin. The arms sagged, limp save for spasmodic twitchings.
Half-sick with the sight, the smell, Boone stumbled back.
But before he could even drop the axe, a new cry came.
It rose behind him, this time—from the cabin's other end, the hatchway to the landing ladder.
Boone spun, ran towards the ladder.
From the bottom of the narrow shaft, a white-faced crewman beckoned in a frenzy. "Out—! Get out!" He vanished through the exit port.
Boone dropped the axe and, sliding, plummeted down the ladder. In seconds he, too, was stumbling through the port.
The crewman who'd shouted crouched on the ground in the shadow of the ramping fins beside one of his fellows, the man who'd lain unconscious since they landed. "Look!" His whole arm shook as he pointed.
Boone veered, then froze.
If what had gone before were nightmare, surely this was utter madness! For from beyond the circling hills, a hand was stretching towards them—a hand vast beyond all human concept! Like living columns carved in flesh, the fingers reached out, nails glittering in the filtered sunlight of the ice-shell.
With a mighty effort, Boone forced himself to motion. Lunging back through the port, he tore a long-range blaster from its wall-clip, then leaped to the ground once more and raced away, off to one side where there was space clear of the ship for him to use the weapon.
His action seemed to break the paralysis of the crouching crewman. Jumping up, the fellow disappeared for a moment into the carrier, then rushed out again with a second blaster and darted after Boone.
The giant hand's shadow fell upon the ship. The circling fingers closed about it.
Boone stumbled to a halt. Twisting, he swung round the blaster ... triggered a bolt at the clutching hand.
For the barest instant the hand stopped short. Then, in one savage, spasmodic motion, the great fingers clamped down on the carrier, clenching.
There was a clash and crash of rending metal; a roar of compressor tanks exploding. Flame spurted out between the crushing fingers.
Wrist-muscles bulging, the hand whipped high into the air, then down again with earth-shaking force. The fingers opened ... spilled out the crumpled mass of wreckage that had been the ship.
... Wreckage, and the pitiful, broken bodies of the two crewmen who had been trapped inside.
A hoarse cry burst from the throat of their comrade, the man who'd followed Boone. Whipping up his blaster, he blazed bolt after bolt into the hand.
As a human might slap at a mosquito, the hand smashed down and crushed him, then started towards Boone.
Shock-rocked, quaking, he dived into the closest flower-clump's cover ... rolled and writhed through the foliage, flat against the earth.
Overhead the hand paused, searching.
Then, bare yards from him, suddenly, it fell.
But not in a blow. No. This was different. For it fell limp and sagging, as if the muscles all at once had lost their power.
Boone lay like a statue—frozen, waiting.
Nothing happened.
The tension in him grew moment by moment, till he could hold it down no longer. He surged to his feet, blaster at the ready.
But the hand did not move. Before his eyes, as he stood there, it was ... melting ... oozing away into the ground in stinking rivulets of slime.
Numbly, Boone moved along it; and now, incredibly, he could see its termination, just below the rim of the nearest hills.
For it was an arm without a body—an arm that trailed off into nothing, like a figure cast in wax.
Yet there too lay the carrier, crushed and crumpled ... the broken bodies of the men.
This limp, dead arm had done that....
It was more than human mind could take. Boone slumped to the ground and cowered there, shaking.
Nor would the seizure pass. It was as if he suddenly were chilling. Cold crept through his veins in icy tendrils to the very marrow of his bones.
Harder and harder he shook. Yet still no surcease came. His whole body was aching now and it dawned upon him, dimly, that no shock alone could leave him thus yet still alive.
Then, at long last, the chills and cold departed, driven out by a quick, fierce heat. His mouth grew dry. His tongue took on new thickness. Flowers, hills, wreckage—all seemed distorted. He burned as with a flaming fever....
Fever—?
He knew, then.
Titan fever!
What else could it be, here on Hyperion, but that strange pyrexia that mutated Man's gametes?
So there was no hope for him, no answer....
He never knew for sure what happened after that—how much was reality, how much fever-madness.
For delirium came, and in that state he wandered. The hills rolled down in lowering barriers of menace, and flowers talked to him, and he walked beside strange streams.
And then, sometimes, it seemed that Eileen stood beside him ... that he could hear her rippling laughter echo, and taste her lips, and smell the fragrance of her hair.
But Eileen was still a prisoner of the Helgae, sealed in a sphere somewhere within their weird, domed cities.
That meant he had to find her.
So he wandered on, babbling of mekronal and chandak ... precious chandak, the only remedy that could save him from his fate.
And Krobis was there, too, and Terral—all the others. Sometimes they mocked; sometimes they helped him.
Not that it mattered. For now, all at once, he could get away from his own body, floating cloud-like in space beneath three great green suns.
The monsters came, then.
The first was in the image of the Helgae—lumpish, mottled, but with a yawning orifice that he knew somehow was meant to be a mouth. Twice it tried to swallow him as he floated, then faded away again when he rolled away beyond its reach.
The second took the appearance of his own father. Its face pressed close, all clipped mustache and burning eyes and shiny skin.
He shrank before it.
But the face kept following him, pressing closer, and the feeling grew within him that if the tight grey lips should ever open, he would surely die.
So he surged away in utter terror ... fled through the green-tinged sky-sea around him.
But his muscles were all at once like water, his movements as inadequate and slow as only the responses in a dream can be.
Desperately, he tried to move faster ... faster....
The face rushed in. He screamed aloud.
Then he was falling. Head over heels, he pitched down into depths at once black as night and shining white and shimmering with weird iridescence.
The third monster rose out of the mists beneath him.
It was a thing of horror beyond the telling, with a body Boone sensed more than he saw.
But from that body rose a long and sinuously slender eyestalk, surmounted with a huge human eye.
It was the eye that held Boone; for as he stared into it in mute, numb fascination, he knew that it would draw him ever closer till at last the slime-mass that was the body could swirl out and suck him in.
A black wave of despair engulfed him. Of a sudden his palms, his whole body, were drenched with sweat. The feeling that he was falling faded. Vaguely, he became aware of roughnesses beneath him. A breeze washed over him and he chilled.
Slowly, painfully, he opened his eyes ... stared up into the murk of night.
But it was a night that was already dying. Far off to one side, a dim glow marked the coming of the day.
Cords of tension fell away. Once again, at last, he lived in a world of reality, not nightmare.
He hugged it to him; drew in the chill security of it with gusty, lung-expanding breaths.
The grey glow in the distance spread. Weakly, he sat up to look about him—and stared instead into the pale malevolence of a great, baleful, swaying eye!
He froze, not daring to move or speak.
For the thing before him was the monster of his fever-madness—the eyestalked horror from the dream.
Yet he knew—he knew!—that he had left delirium's valley. This was reality! Without question, the fever had waned and gone.
Then what—?
He had no answer. Not here; not now. He could only wait, and hope, and perhaps pray.
But while he watched, not daring to so much as flick an eye or move a muscle, the thing before him began to eddy slowly closer.
New sweat rilled down Boone's spine. A knot of tension drew tight within his belly.
Sinuously, the monster's eyestalk swayed. The huge orb atop stared at Boone unblinking.
Stiff-fingered, too fear-straught to even look away, he slid his hands out in arcs along the ground.
But they touched no stick, no stone, no clod, no debris. He remained as he had been, a warrior sore beset, without a weapon.
And still the monster eddied closer....
He could not even break and run. Weak as he was, he dared not even trust his muscles.
Spasmodically, his nails scraped at the dirt.
The dirt—!
He dug his fingers deep into it ... sucked a ragged breath to ease his hammering heart.
Like a serpent poising to strike, the monster paused. The horror that was its body drew together.
With a wild shout, Boone hurled the dirt square into the glaring eye.
The eyestalk whipped back, quivering and pulsing. Then, in an instant, recovering, the creature spilled forward in a rush.
But already Boone was twisting, scrambling, clawing his way along the ground.
Then there was a rock beneath his hands, big as a man's head. In spite of his weakness he clutched it, swung it up.
The monster swept down upon him as he pivoted.
Boone hurled the rock.
It struck at the base of the weird thing's eyestalk. With a snapping sound, the orb's stem broke.
Twitching, writhing, the body halted. Then, as with the giant arm, the other monsters, the creature's whole structure began to shrivel and ooze away in slime.
Panting, shaking, Boone slumped back to the ground, his brain a cauldron bubbling with inchoate thoughts.
Like a mosaic, then, the pieces fell into place.
This whole void-area—and this area only—seemed to crawl with mad phantasms ... lunatic life-forms like none that Man had ever seen before. Out of nowhere, they materialized aboard the Cartel's sphere-ships. Here, on Hyperion; Titan, too.
Those were the facts. Now, suddenly, they took on form and pattern.
For in his delirium, Boone knew he'd had nightmares of this specific slime-drenched horror.
Awakening, his fever gone, he'd faced the hideous thing on reality's plane.
And the Helgae could play strange tricks with human minds....
The Helgae—they were the correlating factor!
The Cartel had come and raped their silent cities for the sake of mekronal and chandak.
So lacking the power of discourse, words to protest, they'd struck back in their own dark way.
Somehow, they'd reached into men's deep subconscious and dredged up monsters—the paranoid delusions of fevered brains.
Then, as the mediums of another day had claimed to give spirits ectoplasmic body, so now the Helgae materialized nightmares into life!
What armor could turn aside such a weapon?
Yet beyond it lay the threat of Titan fever. For that, too, could be a blow struck by the Helgae—the main attack, designed to cripple the mass-mind of the whole, far-flung human race!
Boone shuddered.
Yet strength rose in him, not despair. For with knowledge, the fears he'd felt of the unknown vanished. He looked about in the growing light with new, fresh eyes.
The landscape had changed from that which he last remembered. This ground lay in altogether different contours.
Frowning, he turned.
Now, with a shock, he found himself staring out on a familiar scene: the arcs and domes and bubbles of the self-same sprawling Helgae city where he and Eileen had lain entombed.
... Where Eileen still might lie.
It was a thought to make his belly churn, his heart pound, wrenching cruelly at every atom of his being. He sagged, gripped his head between his hands.
The sleeve of his shirt fell across his face, ripped wide. Incredulously, he discovered that everything he wore hung in rags and tatters. Even his shoes were slashed and mud-caked.
How far had he strayed in his fever-wanderings? How long had it been since delirium struck?
He ran his fingers over cheek and chin: a three days' growth of beard at least ... maybe more.
Not that it mattered. For he was alive; and out of horror, hypothesis had been born. If, truly, the materializing monsters and Titan fever were weapons of the beleaguered Helgae, then a truce must somehow be arranged, even if it meant complete human withdrawal from all satellites of Saturn.
That called for action by the Federation: action which the Cartel's chiefs would fight with tooth and nail.
Yet IC might well defeat itself by its own opposition. All apart from any Helgae menace, the Independents would rally instantly to whatever cause should threaten to disrupt the Cartel's mekronal production.
But that could wait; Eileen could not. Here, now, somehow, he had to save her.
Or was that hopeless?
Only time and fate could give the answers. Meanwhile, the least that he could do was try.
Unsteadily, Boone rose. He cursed the fever that had drained his strength.
It was then he heard the crashing blaster bolt beyond the ridge, off to his right, away from the Helgae city.
Again, his heart leaped. Blasters spoke for men, not Helgae—human help, here on Hyperion with him!
Lurching, stumbling, he dragged himself up the hill.
At last, the crest.
Below, the hull of a ramped Independent carrier, scarlet and silver, came into view.
Now strength surged through Boone. He broke into a staggering run, straight down the slope.
Only then, as he careened too fast past a brushy thicket, something thrust out between his flying feet. He spilled forward in a bruising, sliding fall.
A voice rasped, "Don't move! I've got you covered!"
Painfully, Boone twisted.
A man stood in the shadow of the thicket—a man with a blaster, a man who wore the blue-grey field outfit of an Interplanetary Cartels guard.
The other's lean face split in a mirthless grin as he stalked forward. "You're Boone, aren't you?" And then: "Krobis had you figured. He said you'd come in if you spotted an Independent ship."
"Krobis—?" Boone's lips went stiff. "You mean, he's here?"
"Of course he's here." The guard chuckled. "You told him about this Helgae city underneath the ice-shell yourself, didn't you? So he set up a base but pronto, with manpower enough to fight off monsters. He plans to start blasting the domes before next cycle, get a mekronal unit into production, and claim Hyperion for the next Cartel."
He broke off; gestured to Boone with the blaster. "Get up! We're going in. The way Krobis feels about you, catching you's good for Earth leave and a sergeant's rating."
Numbly, Boone heaved himself to his feet, stood swaying.
Was this to be the end of all his sufferings—back where he started, a prisoner en route to a cell in Venus Barracks? Was the Cartel to go on butchering the Helgae till opposing life-forms clashed in full-scale war?
Above all, was he never to know the truth as to Eileen's fate? Did this mark the end of his last dim chance to save her?
For all illusion had died in him. Whatever else might be, there was no mercy in Martin Krobis. Ego, vengeance, ambition—those were the man's three key dynamics. Nothing else mattered to him; not truth, nor justice, nor even the life of Eileen Rey. He'd laugh at theories ... gloat over his triumphs ... sacrifice the rest of the human race if need be for the sake of the Cartel and his own fame and power.
"Get moving," the guard clipped. "We're going in."
Wearily, Boone turned and stumbled down the slope through the brush towards the ramped carrier.
But for all despair, fatigue, a spark still burned within him.
Krobis must not win! He must not!
Ahead, the ground fell away more sharply; and there were trees and bushes, saplings.
With cold deliberation, Boone tripped—pitched forward—let himself fall headlong.
But as he fell, he caught the limb of a slender treelet.
It bent almost double.
Prone now, Boone clung to it.
The guard ran to him, blaster ready. "Get up, you!" Face a mask of wary menace, he stepped closer.
Too close.
Boone let go of the limb.
The treelet snapped back. Branches slashed into the guard's face.
Out of reserves he had not known existed, Boone drew strength to hurl himself into spasmodic action. He twisted, kicked for the guard's legs with all his might.
The man went down with a hoarse, choked shout.
Boone lurched down upon him. His elbow smashed at the other's temple.
The guard sagged, glaze-eyed and groggy.
Snatching up the blaster, Boone hit his adversary with the butt, a savage blow.
The guard went limp, unconscious.
Sick, sobbing for breath, Boone slumped beside him.
But only for a moment.
Then, rallying, he fumbled the rations from the other's belt-case, gulping down the concentrates in great, gagging, half-chewed bites.
His protesting stomach writhed. For long seconds he thought he was going to vomit.
But that, too, passed. The sugars, the ectoids, began to reach his bloodstream.
Strength came with them.
Tight-lipped, clutching the blaster, Boone began the long, weary climb back up the hill.
... Back, and beyond, to the strange, domed city of the Helgae ... and to Eileen Rey....
CHAPTER VII
He saw the light-shafts first—two glowing cones of color that speared down from a single halo-source high in this vastest of all the bubble-chambers. The beam on the left shone rich with hues of deepest purple. The other, the one on the right, shimmered golden as Earth's September sun.
Numb, wordless, Boone moved forward with unsteady steps.